Dixie- 27
Ridge Spring-Monetta- 13 McBee- 18 Blackville-Hilda- 14 Lamar- 48 Williston-Elko- 22 Wagener-Salley- 42 Whitmire- 7 Baptist Hill- 28 Branchville- 6 Green Sea-Floyds- 64 C.E. Murray- 26 Hemingway- 28 Bethune-Bowman- 6 Lake View- 46 St. John’s- 15 Breakdown- There were a few upsets by the seeds, but there was only one “holy crap who beat who with the which now” result in the second round of the Class A playoffs, that being McBee’s victory over Blackville-Hilda. I mentioned in my picks last week that I felt like the Panthers could give the Hawks a little bit of trouble. My reasoning was that Blackville-Hilda almost never sees anyone who spreads or stretches the field, so McBee’s new passing attack could prove a bit problematic. I in no way predicted a McBee win, though. I think I said it might be close for a bit but then Blackville-Hilda would grind McBee up into a powder and use their vanquished particulates to thicken their stew, or something. I just thought they were too big, too physical and too good on defense to lose this one. From what I read, McBee did get a couple of big plays if not consistency and did struggle to stop Blackville-Hilda’s power running game. However, the Hawks scored only once on six trips into McBee territory, they dropped a lot of passes and they dropped a couple of potential picks. So, they made some mistakes, but give McBee major credit for going on the road and getting key stops when they needed them. You can say “well Blackville got all drop-y” but that also acknowledges that Blackville was put in a position where they had to throw the ball, which isn’t something that has happened much this year. Once you get this deep in the playoffs, things start to reveal themselves a little bit. Take nothing away from the Hawks and new coach Corey Crosby. You get a program eight wins for the first time in a while and make it to the second round of the playoffs, you’ve had a great season. However, when you look at how poorly Region III has done in the playoffs, you kind of start to wonder if it was actually as good as you thought it was. It’s a really big region, so no teams get many out-of-region contests. When they do they are either playing Larry’s Living Room Rangers or, Barnwell. Teams they are either easily going to beat or ones that will have them toting an ass-whipping for a good gate. They don’t have many games against other quality Class A programs, so it’s difficult to judge just how good they really are. When they were 0-6 and just getting railed every week, the idea that McBee would make a trip to the third round of the playoffs would have seemed like the product glue sniffin’. But they’re 4-2 since then and sure enough are going to Dixie this week for Round three… Speaking of Dixie, the three-week layoff didn’t seem to hurt them as they ran past Ridge Spring-Monetta 27-13. Now, I actually picked RS-M, but did so with the caveat that I didn’t know that they’d actually win. They normally play their best this time of year, Dixie had not played in a while and what fun is it to always pick the favorite. Well, being right is fun, so that pick was sort of the onion on a big ‘ol DERP burger. Deiveon Donald (this week’s winner of CRANKSMACK OF THE WEEK…my stupidly-named player of the week award) ran for 205 yards and a touchdown for the Hornets. They did what they’ve done all year, which is to say run right up the bucket of the opposition with big, strong backs behind a big, experienced line and played great defense. Collier Sullivan ran for 139 yards for the Trojans, but the team barely cracked 160 yards of total offense, more than 70 of which came on one scoring play. I’m not sure what happened with RS-M this year. They had a ton of talent back from last year’s upperstate finalist team. They didn’t have a bad year by any stretch, but I just kinda of kept waiting on them to switch it into high gear like they always do at the end of the year and that never really happened. Dixie gets those resurgent Panthers this Friday… Every other game went like I expected they would. Lamar’s win over Williston-Elko wasn’t nearly as close as the final score makes it seem, since Lamar led 41-0 early in the third. My double-secret Lamar informant said Malik Johnson and Jacquez Lucas established the run early and Williston struggled, in the first half particularly, in trying to force the ball to KeShawn Toney. He also said Williston’s ranks looked a little thin, odd since they started the year with over 50 guys. Lamar was just too physical on both sides for the young Devils. They will face Wagener-Salley this week. The boys from Chitlinvania didn’t allow Whitmire’s offense to do much of anything in a 42-7 win. When the last S.C. Prep Media Poll was conducted, Lamar was number one and Wagener-Salley was number two, so this is a crazy matchup for a third-rounder. I’ll preview that one and all the other games on Friday…No surprises in the lowerstate. I did kinda, sorta raise an eyebrow when I saw how close Branchville was able to keep it with Baptist Hill, but the Yellow Jackets kept a lot of games close this year and were pretty senior-heavy. It may just a radar blip caused by a really fat bird breaking wind or something, but they’ve scored 28 points in each of their last two games after going for 58 or more in five straight. The defending lowerstate champs get a huge test this week from a red hot Green Sea-Floyds team. That they’ve gone over 60 twice in their last two shows you how well they’re playing, since they pretty much just line up and run it right at you. They were able to do that against C.E. Murray last Friday. Their game with Baptist Hill will be a war. On the losing end of that game, though is C.E. Murray. After three straight deep playoff runs, the War Eagles are done, but you have to understand what you’re looking at. C.E. Murray graduated a ton of talent, had two big-time starters transfer yet still found a way to finish with a winning record and win lots of close games. That is usually attributable to a couple of things, things like culture and coaching, both of which they have…The Mr. T Haircuts had one of their best seasons in the last 20 years, but just ran into a team that has more top-end talent. Hemingway has been up and down but seem to have mostly found their way at this point, which is good for them since they get a really, really good Lake View team this week. They took out a young St. John’s team. Let me say this about the Islanders and remember that the weird meat and football blog guy said this…they will be one of the team’s to beat next year. They started a lot of talented young guys this year. They’ve now got a year of experience under their belt, they have a good coaching staff leading the way…they are going to be hard to handle in 2019. Suggested Reading CRANKSMACK!!!! McBee ain’t no living room rangers, Broham. Holding Baptist Hill to 88 yards passing seems like quite an accomplishment…until you read the part about how they ran for 400 yards. Oh well.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
TravisI am Travis, the king 0f SC 1A Football Archives
November 2021
Categories |